Culture & Religion

Author Paul Theroux says that e-books seem “magical” to him, but that something is lost when we give up the “physicality” of a book.

Despite the fact that cilantro is happily consumed by millions of people around the world, it inspires “a primal revulsion among an outspoken minority of eaters” who say it tastes like soap.

News of Norman Mailer via his widow’s memoir makes us want to remember all the things he wrote—and said. Like this: “A novel, at its best, really is an imaginary […]

Poorly rendered female characters proliferate in crime novels because their authors are lazy, writes novelist Christopher Rice. He lists four clichés that come up again and again.

Scientists studying a neurodevelopmental disorder called Williams syndrome report that children with the disease seem not to form racial stereotypes.

You know all that stuff you’ve been told for years not to eat–like animal fat, eggs and butter? Well, Nina Planck, the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and […]

Bestselling author Lionel Shriver isn’t embarrassed to admit that her impulse to write stems from her feelings of social incompetence: “You know that feeling of having had an encounter with […]

“When I tell people I would like to paint them, I already have their portrait in mind,” German artist Otto Dix once said. “I don’t paint people who don’t interest […]

My college buddy from Detroit is in town this week. We stayed up too late last night talking, just like we used to do when we were back in school […]

Despite popular outrage over the accessibility of porn on the Net, psychologist Dr. Terri Apter says it does not demonstrably affect the behavior of those who view it.

David Brooks’s New York Times column today—on humility in leadership—plays an elegant, if not uncommon, trick via the inversion of a simple pronoun. Once he starts to describe the “humble […]

Americans love a redemption story, and Tiger Woods is likely to join a long list of brands that have come back refreshed after a stint in rehab.

“How should we begin to make amends for raising a generation obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth and indifferent to so much else?” asks Tony Judt.

Scientists have found a couple of 1.9-million-year-old skeletons in a South African cave that may be “a Rosetta Stone for defining for the first time what the genus Homo is.”

Male friendships are qualitatively different from female friendships. Men may not be physically or emotionally expressive, but they provide a lot of support for each one another with their presence.

“Otto Dix is a difficult artist to like,” writes Judith Dobrzynski of the Weimar artist known for his harsh, cruel depictions of social and moral decay. “But admiration is a different thing altogether.”

Here’s a story about balancing work and family, as recounted recently by Teddy Kennedy: One day in 1961 John F. Kennedy was comforting his crying daughter at the family’s Hyannis […]

“Contrary to expectations and lamentations, widespread piracy does not kill commercial filmmaking,” writes Kevin Kelly. “Existence proof: the largest movie industries on the planet.”

Noting Sarah Palin’s meandering phraseology, John McWhorter wonders why mindless speaking no longer prevents someone from becoming a major public influencer.

Robert Wright believes Tiger Woods’ sexual behavior represents a threat to the moral sanction that is vital to the institution of monogamous marriage.

Americans continue to believe in race—“kind of like [how] people believe in witches,” says Princeton historian Nell Irvin Painter. Yet the concept of race as we know it didn’t develop […]

Finally, someone has taken the (necessary) contrarian view: Tiger’s nothing new. Furthermore, his public “shaming” and highly planned apologies are products, like tennis shoes–ones we might consider feeling shame ourselves […]

Yassin Musharbash writes that banning women from wearing burqas won’t solve the underlying problems of Muslim immigration and integration that plague Western societies.

With tenure-track positions dwindling at universities, Peter Conn writes that humanities faculties need to “articulate our contribution if we hope to find increasing levels of support for the work we do.”

David Remnick appeared on Meet the Press yesterdayto discuss his book on Obama. Among other things, he noted how careful the President is in understanding the need for nuance when […]

It’s a common truth now that as much as we create our culture, our culture also creates us. Like Frankenstein’s monster acting with a mind of his own, culture eludes […]

March Madness isn’t the only insanity surrounding the American (and global) obsession with sports but just how skewed have our priorities become?

“What do you see?” asks Alfred Molina as Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko in John Logan’s two-character bio-drama, Red, which just began a run on Broadway after a successful tour […]

I don’t know whether it was the impeachment effort against Georgia’s attorney general, or the arrest of the Hutaree militia terrorists, or the Army doctor who refuses to obey military […]